With sweeping views west to Pipes Cove, east to Gardiners Bay and ahead to the bluffs of Shelter Island Heights, the North Ferry ride from Greenport offers a 15-minute introduction to the geography, geology and climate of Long Island’s North Fork. Some people say you can taste the North Fork in the food and wine produced from its fruits, vegetables and animals.

The proprietors of three distinguished Shelter Island Restaurants — Terry Harwood at Vine Street Café, Joe and Dennis Smith at the Ram’s Head Inn and Jimi Rando at Sweet Tomato’s — find a sense of place they can taste in the food and wine created on the North Fork. They say they find inspiration in the local fish, shellfish, cheese, produce and wines. And when they discuss their signature dishes, they also like to talk about the Long Island wines they pour with them.

(Credit: Julie Lane)

Vine Street Café

Lisa and Terry Harwood’s Vine Street Café has been delighting diners on Shelter Island since 2003 with a menu that’s in harmony with Long Island’s land and seasons.

You can still hear a hint of Tennessee when Terry Harwood speaks, a reminder of his being “born and raised … on my grandpa’s vegetable farm.” Where he grew up, all vegetables were local and organic because that’s what they could get.

From the beginning, Long Island wines were an important part of the experience at Vine Street Café.

“Our wines are grown on an island surrounded by the sea where ocean breezes along with a particular soil composition gives that distinct mineral note to most Long Island wines,” Harwood says. “Our vegetables are grown in the same soil with the same breezes, so it makes for a better fit.”

Duck confit is a year-round favorite at Vine Street Café and Harwood likes to pair it with Bedell Cellars merlot. He also uses the merlot in the reduction for the duck jus.

“It’s the French oak barrels that tame the tannins and therefore do not overpower the delicate duck confit,” he says.

To accompany fish preparations, such as pan-roasted wild striped bass with roasted root vegetable-kale salad and potato-crusted local fluke with fingerling potato, Harwood calls for Bon Appetit Chardonnay from The Lenz Winery.

“We love and serve Lenz’s reds,” he says. “But I like pairing the chardonnay because of its straightforward, dry citrus and crispness, which goes so well with many of our seasonal white fish preparations.”

He says he’s impressed with the wine being made on Long Island.

“We have smart winemakers who are handcrafting some great wines that can only come from our soil,” Harwood says. “I take personal inspiration from this.”

(Credit: Eleanor P. Labrozzi)

Ram’s Head Inn

Since 1929, the Ram’s Head Inn has stood at the crest of a hill blanketed by a huge green lawn, dotted with old trees and sloping down to Coecles Harbor.

Chef Joseph Smith, who began his cooking career in the Ram’s Head kitchen when he was just 16, designs his menu both to honor the history of the building and to show off the bounty of the North Fork.

His brother, general manager Dennis Smith, pairs those dishes with the best Long Island wines.

A great meal at The Ram’s Head Inn often starts with oysters.

“I always have a local oyster. I’ll get Montauk Pearls, Blue Points … most people like the East Coast oysters,” the chef says. “They are brinier.”

Dennis Smith likes to pair local oysters with Sparkling Pointe Brut, the award-winning sparkling wine made in Southold.

A highlight of last spring’s menu was herb-crusted rack of lamb with morels and crushed fava beans — a local specialty. Dennis Smith paired it with Pellegrini Vineyards’ 2007 Petit Verdot.

In developing their menu, the brothers work closely, collaborating to balance the flavor profile of each dish with its paired wine and keeping in mind the strengths of the local wines.

(Credit: Julie Lane)

Sweet Tomato’s

Take a beautiful old Victorian house in Shelter Island Heights, equip it with a wood-burning brick oven fueled by kiln-dried hardwood, add an Italian-American family obsessed with food and you have the start of a great restaurant. But according to general manager Jimi Rando, a trip to Northern Italy in 2009 was the defining event for Sweet Tomato’s.

“Northern Italy and Shelter Island,” Rando says. “We really wanted to connect the two because we felt there really was a connection. On the plane ride back, my brother and I wrote our first great menu. It was a success. That was when we really started to do what we are doing now.”

That’s also when they were introduced to a Tuscan dish called zucca fresca, a raw salad of green and yellow zucchini sliced thin, to resemble pappardelle, and dressed. Only their version takes advantage of the North Fork’s great zucchini.

“A lot of our dishes are replicated from something we saw there,” Rando says of his trip to Italy.

His short ribs have become Sweet Tomato’s signature dish.

“We serve the whole short rib,” he says. “We braise it for nine hours, put it over pappardelle with a brown demiglaze with a little wine added.” To accompany those short ribs, he recommends Dos Aguas from Macari, a wine named for the two waters that embrace the North Fork.

“I think the 2008 Dos Aguas was one of the best values,” he says. “In so many ways it represents the North Fork for what it is.”

The brick oven plays an important role in many dishes at Sweet Tomato’s, including the oven-roasted fluke, made with olives and rosemary and served on a mascarpone risotto with asparagus.

“The olives wilt a bit in the oven, and I almost char the asparagus to get that woody taste of the oven,” he says.

Of course, a great Shelter Island restaurant experience ends with a great dessert — and Macari’s Block E Ice Wine got the nod from more than one Shelter Island chef as the North Fork wine to serve with that last course.

Rando described the effect of pairing it with his zabaglione, which is served with shaved young pecorino and balsamic reduction: “Every bite tastes like white chocolate.”

04/17/2014

The United States has its share of dubious food traditions. Packaged pork rinds, the Happy Meal and turducken spring to mind. But don’t blame America for orange cheese--we did not start it.

Paul Kindstedt, an expert in the history of cheese, reported in his 2012 book, Cheese and Culture, that pale cheeses were dyed orange by Dutch and English cheesemakers in the 19th century for marketing purposes—possibly to mimic the very high-fat cheese made from the milk of grass-fed Guernsey and Jersey cows. Later, the practice became common in Ohio, Wisconsin and parts of New York, as orange cheese was associated with high quality imported cheeses.

In the 21st century orange is still the color most commonly associated with cheese in the U.S. It is not however, the color of most cows’ milk. Today, almost all commercial cheese is dyed orange.

Mecox Bay Dairy in Bridgehampton makes orange cheese the old-school way. Art Ludlow, owner and cheesemaker, said there are two factors that account for the yellow-to orange color of many Mecox cheeses—beta-carotene and bacteria. Mr. Ludlow said a washed-rind cheese such as Sunrise Mecox will have, “a reddish, orange rind caused by a very specific bacteria that gives the cheese its characteristic flavor. “ In the summer months, the Mecox cows eat grass, and the beta-carotene in the grass results in yellow milk; a natural color that is a hallmark of the fine cheeses made from this milk.

Mecox Bay Dairy is one of the East End producers packing the new Riverhead Farmers’ Market every Saturday from 11-3. Mecox offers an award-winning array of aged cheeses, made from the milk of their grass-eating Jersey cows. A handful of one of the Mecox cheeses; Sunrise, Sigit, or Farmhouse Cheddar, is the natural way to give your macaroni that classic orange look.

Old-School Macaroni and Cheese

Yield: approximately 4-6 servings.

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups dry elbow macaroni

1 large onion

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk

6.5 oz (approximately 2 cups) coarsely grated cheese-use at least three kinds, at least one of which is orange.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Bring two quarts of water to a boil and add the salt. Cook the elbows “al dente”--about two minutes less than the cooking time on the package. Drain and set aside.

3. Dice the onion and sauté in 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat, stirring frequently until the onion is caramelized--completely soft, brown and sweet-smelling. Set aside.

4. In a 2 quart sauté pan, melt the rest of the butter over a medium flame.

5. When the butter melts and gets foamy, stir in the flour, cooking until it is light brown.

6. Whisk the milk into the butter/flour. The mixture will thicken as the milk is incorporated and heats up.

7. Add the cheeses to the milk mixture and stir until the cheese is melted and the mixture is smooth. Add the cooked onions, reserving 2 tablespoons. Remove immediately from the flame and stir the drained elbows into the cheese mixture.